


Did I fall asleep? (Everything’s going to be all right)

by Schreibblockade



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Amnesia, F/F, Romantic Soulmates, Secret Kalex Santa, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-23 01:09:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17070626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schreibblockade/pseuds/Schreibblockade
Summary: What do you do when you forget your soulmate? Amnesia Soulmate AU





	Did I fall asleep? (Everything’s going to be all right)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [justanexercise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanexercise/gifts).



> Written for the Kalex Secret Santa 2018. Hope you like it, justanexercise! I chose your “amnesia” prompt for this one. (Also, I swear this is neither a serious nor an angsty fic.)
> 
> Title from the Dollhouse TV series.
> 
> Big shoutout to my buddy intothegrave who coined “True Love’s Kiss or True Love’s Stunt?” for the end of this fic. *lol*
> 
> I've only ever watched until 2x09, so if the new characters seem off, that's probably why.

_Remember when you used to think that "solved" and "fixed" meant the same thing?  
(Awake, Pilot Episode)_

 

When the Dominator has finally been beaten, Winn is almost too afraid to turn around and see what damage it has caused to both National City and his friends and co-workers. But, alas, someone has to, he thinks, as he makes his way from his workstation to the damaged balcony of the DEO.

Half of the downtown area has been reduced to rubble, with the occasional Supergirl- or Dominator-sized hole in the surrounding buildings. The top third is missing from the L-Corp skyscraper, which was thankfully evacuated in time with no casualties. CatCo Media seems fine, despite a good chunk of its windows being destroyed. There’s thick dark smoke covering the city, partly caused by the many fires that the NCFD is still trying to put out, as well as dark clouds rolling in. Sirens are constantly wailing in the distance—as soon as one stops another one starts—ambulances trying to make their way through the destroyed downtown area to help civilians, and the NCPD on its way to support them, and to stop less savoury beings from looting.

Winn scratches absentmindedly at the soulmark on his forearm. Whoever they are, if they are in National City, at least they survived this disaster.

The DEO building has some damage to it, but nothing that can’t be fixed. The Legends’ Waverider is looking worse for wear, but the heroes themselves are all standing sitting upright, nursing various injuries. Winn can hear Barry talking to J’onn and Oliver, and somewhere behind him Vasquez is trying to figure out which of their systems are still online and to see where a full list of the DEO agents and staff is.

The DEO agents. Well, at least they’re mostly still alive, thanks to—

A snowflake landing on his nose startles Winn out of his thoughts.

It’s heartbreaking, he thinks, his eyes lifting to the sky to watch more snowflakes drift down, that the two people who are the most excited about snow out of everyone he knows, are both in a coma and missing out on National City’s first snowfall since five decades ago.

 

++

 

It’s been exactly thirty days and ten hours since Alex was put into a medically induced coma.

It’s been exactly thirty days, nine hours and twenty minutes since Kara’s coma started.

But who’s counting.

Alex has basically been electrocuted by the Dominator’s fancy thunderbolt weapon—and if Lena had more on her mind than waiting for her best friends to wake up, she’d even check out what little the DEO was able to retrieve of the weapon. As it is, said weapon is responsible for frying all of Alex’s synapses and for the DEO medical staff to frantically work all their magic to heal her after J’onn flew Alex in from the battlefield.

Lena’s been busy spending every free minute she has at the DEO, updating her friends on how far along the reconstruction of the city is, or how she and Winn were finally able to help the Legends repair the Waverider so they can go home. Or how Ruby’s last soccer game went and how her niece’s team absolutely obliterated their opponents and how irritating she found the opposing team’s coach (“You think playing in a destroyed city is hard? Try being a school choir teacher, that’s hard!”). Or how she wishes that the best chemists that money and hero-worship can buy would finally be able to develop an even better regeneration drug for humans than a government funded agency, so that she can stop curling up on the visitor’s couch in the DEO’s infirmary and have a game night with them, Sam and Ruby instead.

She doesn’t know if they can hear her, but she hopes they do.

When Alex went down, Kara quite literally saw red, furiously making her way through what little was left of downtown NC. Lena watched the live TV feed with her heart in her throat.

After what felt like hours, but couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes, the Dominator was finally backed into a corner, a raging Kryptonian advancing. Several meta-humans, trained agents and alien allies close in behind Supergirl, not sure who and what to expect after the confrontation was over, one way or another. Not willing to go down without a last hurrah, the Dominator grabbed what looked like a glass cylinder from god-knows-where, and broke it right in front of Kara before she let her heat vision loose in a blast that was more powerful than all of them had ever seen.

The Dominator was burned to a crisp, the fight was over a few seconds after Kara’s heat vision turned off. She took big gulping breaths, furiously wiping away tears, before she crumbled down, unconscious.

The DEO physicians thought it was just a solarflare when J’onn brought her in, used to Kara misjudging her powers, but Lena had a feeling it was worse. After all, Kara’s soulmate just died with her watching on helplessly.

The statistics aren’t good when it comes to a soulmate dying from unnatural causes. At least not when it comes to completely human relationships. The remaining partner usually dies within a few months from a broken heart.

Except this is not a completely human relationship. And Alex is still alive, alive, alive, barely, slowly recovering—but, Kara doesn’t know. She saw Alex go down in flames and in turn burned herself up.

Physically, Dr. Hamilton told Lena after about a week, Kara was completely fine. She’d wake up eventually when her mind was ready.

There’s also the issue of the glass cylinder the Dominator broke just before its last moments, which contained a gas unknown to Earth (both 1 and 38) as well as the Kryptonian database in Superman’s Fortress of Solitude. Whatever was in there was also responsible in this being a fullblown coma instead of just a solarflare.

Lena never put much thought into whether or not a soulmark means you can also feel when your soulmate is _alive_ , but she hopes it does.

In the quiet moments before she leaves the infirmary for the evening to go home, which more often than not is Sam’s place because she can’t stand the silence of her own apartment, she tells them how much she misses them both.

 

++

 

It's been sixty days since The Battle, give or take a few hours, when Eliza Danvers notices different readings in the various life support machines her daughter and her daughter-in-law are hooked onto. The DEO has put them in a private room within the facility, monitoring Alex’s healing progress meticulously. A cast on Alex’s left arm came and went, as well as on her right leg, with a physical therapist making sure that atrophy doesn’t set in too badly. Hair is growing back where the doctors had to shave off hair on Alex’s skull to perform surgery.

Kara’s progress is... well. Her body was fully healed one and a half months ago. Nothing more and nothing less has changed since then.

The machines that show Alex’s heart rate and brain activity show sudden spikes, and Eliza’s eyes jump to her daughter’s bed.

Alex‘s eyes flutter and Eliza waits with bated breath as she blinks herself into consciousness. Alex frowns at the surroundings of the somewhat familiar DEO longterm recovery room, before she spots her mother.

„Hello, sweetheart,“ Eliza murmurs, gently smoothing over one of Alex‘s hands with her own. „Good to finally see you awake.“

„Mom,“ Alex‘s voice comes out as a croaky whisper due to the months long disuse. „What happened?“

Eliza grimaces. While she was always proud of how her daughter chose a profession that helps and protects others, protects Kara, more often than not Eliza found herself in either the DEO emergency room or a recovery room, always waiting for Alex to just wake up.

„There was a fight,“ Eliza begins, wondering how to phrase exactly what happened. „A Dominator found its way to Earth, and saw it as a potential planet of several billion slaves and thus a lot of money. It was a hard and difficult fight. A lot of Earth-1 and 38’s heroes had to be summoned to defeat it. You—“ Eliza’s voice broke a bit, tears gathering in her eyes. „You died.“

Alex‘s eyes widen in surprise. Getting hurt, sometimes severely, was nothing new in her line of work. But usually you also only get to live once.

Eliza chuckles lightly, without much humour. „Yeah. J‘onn told me that he flew you in from the battlefield without much hope, but one of the resurrection attempts from Dr. Hamilton must’ve worked eventually. And Kara—“ Her eyes flit over to her other daughter‘s/daughter-in-law‘s bed. „Kara absolutely lost it when she saw you die. Defeated the Dominator completely on her own in the end and got poisoned in the process, as Lena just recently found out.“

Her daughter looks at her quizzically, then turns her head slightly, frowning at the blonde woman in DEO standard sportswear lying on the other bed, before turning to Eliza again.

„Who’s Kara?“

Like a bucket of ice cold water dumped over her head, Eliza is filled with a sudden fear.

„Who‘s Kara?“ Eliza whispers faintly, just as Kara‘s eyes shoot open and her whole body jackknifes on the bed, looking around curiously.  „Kara!“ She moves over quickly to the other bed, putting a hand on Kara‘s shoulder to steady her. „Kara, you’ve been in a coma for a while. Lie back down again, sweetheart.“

„Eliza,“ Kara says warmly, letting herself be pushed down. „What happened?“

„There was a fight,“ Eliza begins again. „A Dominator came to Earth to enslave humanity. You managed to defeat him in the end.“ She takes a deep breath, looking at Kara, then Alex, then back again. „Kara,“ she continues gently, „Alex is still alive.“

Kara frowns, looking at the red-headed woman clad in a hospital gown in the other bed, before turning back to Eliza again. „Who‘s Alex?“

Through the roaring in her ears, Eliza thinks that now is a good a time as ever to press the „call nurse“ button.

 

++

 

Doctor Amelia Hamilton rarely sees cases like this in the DEO infirmary. Broken bones and bruises are a given. Concussions, sure, almost daily. Her fair share of amnesia as well.

But amnesia where two halves of a soulmate couple are affected and have effectively forgotten they were even soulmates in the first place?

That’s a first, even with the extensive laundry list of accident prone agents the DEO has running around. One problem solved, another ten spring up, like a hydra.

Amelia rubs her forehead in annoyance, addressing the other occupants in the room.

„I‘ve never seen a case like this. I‘m at a loss at what to do. Supergirl has been cleared to go weeks ago when she woke up, I can’t _keep_ her here any longer,“ she stresses when Lena seems to be about to protest. „She’s physically healthy. She just… forgot Agent Danvers.“

„I wouldn’t call that healthy,“ Winn mumbles petulantly, slumped over in his chair.

Amelia shoots him a glare and he straightens up slightly.

„Agent Danvers might still have a broken right wrist and some bruises and burns that need to be attended, but she’s also cleared to go home and come to physiotherapy and then to therapy from there. There’s nothing I can legally do—and that is within my sane judgement as a doctor—to keep them here any longer, even if they both can’t remember each other. Agent Danvers‘ legs are fine and I‘ve already overextended Supergirl‘s stay more than enough.“

„How do you expect them to live in the same apartment?“ Lena asks, rubbing both hands over her face as Sam rubs her back comfortingly. Lena looks as tired as Amelia feels, having worked together with her for the past weeks to figure out what exactly was in that glass tube the Dominator broke. The DEO and L-Corp have been pooling all their resources to find anyone on this earth and Earth-1, human or alien, who might be able to give them a lead, however small. The only difference: Lena hardly slept in-between days.

Amelia shrugs. „It’s like having a roommate in college, isn’t it? Getting one randomly assigned and then hoping for the best. In this case, the best will be both of them remembering who they are to each other.“

Eliza sighs. „I suppose I can live with them for the time being, I have work to do outside of the lab anyways.“

 

++

 

Alex slowly turns the key in the apartment door. Her apartment. Well. The one she apparently shares with Supergirl. Kara. Because they ~~were~~ are married. Her mom is behind her, carrying both her suitcase and Alex‘s overnight bag while Alex blankly stares at the wedding ring on her left hand, which has mocked her and laughed in her face ever since she woke up.

„Everything okay, Alex?“ Eliza asks, as if she isn’t perfectly aware of the strange turn her only daughter‘s life has taken.

„It’s fine,“ Alex deflects, finally pushing the door open. Inside, Kara is already waiting at the kitchen table, startling and standing up once they step inside. She has changed out of the Supergirl suit the DEO had given her after waking up, and she fiddles with her hands while Eliza puts down Alex‘s bag next to her suitcase.

Kara looks awkward and tense, and Alex can’t exactly blame her. It’s a weird situation they found themselves in.

„Do you girls want anything to eat?“ Eliza asks, hoping the familiar offer of comfort food will help ease the slowly brewing tension a bit. „I can make latkes or we can order in.“ Hannukah has long been over, as has Christmas, but Eliza has a feeling that they’ve all been feeling cheated out on the past few months.

Kara relaxes visibly at the mention of food that is familiar and doesn’t come in small portions on pre-sectioned, disinfected trays.

„I‘d love latkes,“ she says at the same time Alex does, and they both advert their eyes, blushing.

While Eliza busies herself with preparing dinner („This will take a while. Go take a nap, Alex, you must be tired.“), Alex makes her way through the hallway and, after opening the door to the bathroom first by mistake, opens the door to the bedroom, Kara dutifully carrying her bag behind her.

„Oh,“ Alex exhales softly, and now she realises why Kara might’ve behaved so awkwardly before. There’s only two night tables—both cluttered with pictures, a lamp, books and an alarm clock respectively—a closet big enough for two wardrobes, and one freshly made Queen-sized bed in the room.

Right.

They ~~were~~ are married.

„I can take the couch,“ Kara offers in a rushed ramble. „Unlike you I‘m not still recovering—“

(„I‘m already taking the couch!“ Eliza yells from the kitchen, and it makes Alex wonder if some of Kara’s superhearing has rubbed off on her mother.)

„—I can sleep on the floor,“ Kara amends, ready to push her bedding off the bed, when Alex clasps her right hand around Kara‘s left upper arm.

Kara, apparently, is a nervous rambler.

„Don’t be ridiculous. You went through trauma, too, and need to recover in a familiar environment. This is your home, too.  And we‘re both adults, we can share.“ Alex states it so matter-of-factly that Kara can’t help but comply with a nervous nod. „Well,“ Alex continues, stretching her arms over her head, wincing when the movement pulls at the new huge scar on her back, „I‘m gonna take my mom‘s offer of a nap. PT has been exhausting.“

Kara‘s eyes widen and she turns around quickly when Alex, after some rummaging in the closet, starts unbuttoning her shirt.

„Right,“ she says, fighting another rising blush, inching back to the door, „I‘m gonna go and see if Eliza needs some help preparing dinner.“

 

++

 

It continues to be awkward.

Eliza won’t surrender the couch, Alex won’t have Kara sleep on the floor on an old air mattress she found somewhere in the deep space of the closet, and it turns out that Alex sleep-cuddles. Or maybe it’s just muscle memory. The past month, if she didn’t have to carry out Supergirl duties, Kara regularly woke up with an armful of Alex Danvers-Zor-El.

None of their friends are willing to give up their couches for more than a night, not so subtly hoping that continuing to share an apartment will jumpstart their memories. And both of their bank accounts don’t offer them the opportunity to move into an apartment of their own.

At least Alex‘s PT appointments went swimmingly, and she was almost back to full-functioning motor skills.

Kara was happy for her, in this weird „I have to share a bed with a quasi-stranger who is also the wife and foster-sister I had before amnesia hit us both“ kinda way that was now her life. Alex was funny and smart and sarcastic and witty, though, and they managed to form a friendship over their shared experience, trading stories late into the night on most days.

They never talk about their respective soulmarks, though.

Well, at least not to each other. Kara has no idea what Alex tells the DEO shrink, and she definitely does not listen in to their appointments. The DEO has made sure of that with a lead-lined room. And Kara would never disrespect and invade Alex’s privacy by x-raying her to find the mark.

She’s just curious, is all, about when the old Kara had her “Aha!” moment.

When Krypton was imploding, she left without having a soulmark. When she woke up in her pod on Earth, there was a weird itching just underneath her ribcage—which later turned out to be her soulmark. Kal-El explained to her that, while not unheard of on Krypton, at least according to what he found in the archives, soulmarks on Earth came with a twist. It’s not the first words your soulmate says to you, but rather the moment they realised they’ve fallen in love with you. Which might be the first words, but not always. Which also means there are instances you know someone for years before it hits you both.

Which makes Earth soulmarks a twentyfive on the one to ten scale of „How complicated can your soulmark be?“ across the known universe.

So, Kara continues to steep in her curiosity.

Just because she shares a bed with Alex doesn’t mean she can just willy-nilly ask her about her soulmark.

However, Alex‘s shirt rides up one evening when they’re sitting on the couch watching Netflix. Alex tries to get comfortable on her side of the sofa, and Kara sees a huge greyed out mark near her left hip. And maybe it’s not completely visible in the low light and due to Alex’s clothing, but she feels like now might as well be the best moment to sneak a peak with her enhanced vision.

_I want you to have a good life. I want you to find love and be happy. I want you to do all the things that being my sister kept you from doing._

Kara frowns and tries to remember when she said that. There’s... emotions connected to those sentences. Bits and pieces she remembers about her aunt and her uncle, about Myriad, about the DEO desert base and flying Fort Rozz into space. And somehow... making it back.

There’s no Alex in any of those fragmented memories.

 

++

 

“Like, both of your soulmarks are actually greyed out?” Lena asks, looking intrigued when Kara tells her about this new development over lunch at Lena’s apartment building. They’re sitting on opposite ends of the couch, balancing their respective plates on their legs.

“Yeah. I mean. I dunno. Aren’t soulmarks on this planet supposed to be black? Or, y’know, at least legible on whatever kind of skin colour you have,” Kara asks, squinting at Lena to try to see through her to the soulmark that she knows is on her shoulderblade. Lena chuckles at this.

“They are. Them greying out ... usually only happens when that person dies,” Lena ends on a wince, stabbing into her parmesan eggplant with a little too much force, making the plate wobble precariously. “Sorry.”

Kara nods, not phased at all. She has been told Alex died. If only briefly. She scratches below her left rib absentmindedly, before taking a bite from her second pizza.

_I can't promise you a life without pain and loss because pain is a part of life. It's what makes us who we are. It is what makes you a hero. I know you can remember, please. Your friends need you. And I need my sister!_

There’s no memory of someone saying this to her, but Alex must have—at some point. Otherwise the wedding rings and the bonding bracelets she found in the drawer of her night table would never have happened.

“I gotta say, strictly speaking from a scientific point, this is all very fascinating. There’s no case on record that is quite like yours. Believe me, I’ve read everything there is to know the past few months,” Lena says, smiling apologetically at Kara. “However, as your best friend, I’d rather it have happened to someone else. I promise I’m working as hard as I can to find out what you were poisoned with.”

Classic Lena, running herself into the ground trying to help the people she likes.

Kara reaches over and gives her best friend a hug. “Try to get some sleep in between. I know Sam worries about you.”

Lena blushes, and Kara has a gut-feeling there’ll be some changes in that relationship soon-ish.

“So,” Lena continues, steering the conversation in a direction she seems more comfortable with for the moment, “Did you get a new mark then? Usually—” She winces again. “I mean. Usually humans don’t get one because we die of a broken heart. I should stop talking. Seen any good movies lately?”

Kara decides to ignore the last part and starts unbuttoning her shirt instead until the area right above the bra on her left breast can be seen. There, right next to her heart, the simple sentence _“Look at you, oh my god”_ can be read in vibrant green in Alex’s once again familiar scrawl, only slightly diverging from the old mark. “It appeared a few days ago.”

Moving closer to get a better look, Lena looks intrigued by the colour. “I’ve never read about them being green,” she whispers, lost in thought, before shaking her head to refocus herself. “Would you mind if I took a picture for research purposes?”

“Go ahead. Maybe someone on this Earth or in another dimension knows why it’s green.”

“It could be worse,” Lena says dryly as she takes a picture with her phone, fixing Kara with an imploring look, “It could’ve been someone else’s handwriting.”

 

++

 

Her friendship with Kara flourishes.

Sure, there’s still the awkward part of having to share a bed. But that part got better once they also shared stories about their respective lives and really started living together.

Alex is back to about 99% of what she was before The Fight. In the rare case of frustration taking over when the remaining 1% is bothering her with either her grip suddenly turning loose in her now worse left hand, or her back acting up after lounging on the couch weirdly, Kara is there with comforting words and even more comforting hands massaging the offending limb or the knots in her back.

Kara is hilarious and clever, acerbic and quick-witted when Alex least expects it, and she guesses this is part of why this friendship works. Kara knows how she likes her coffee and doesn’t make fun of her when she cries at movies people wouldn’t expect her to cry at. That, and they both have the same taste in TV shows. Because Kara’s musical taste certainly leaves a lot to be desired (Seriously, who still listens to N*Sync?!). Also, Alex has eyes and is a useless gay. There’s certainly worse fates than living together with a beautiful woman.

Anyways.

They don’t talk about their soulmarks. Neither the old ones, which are both greyed out, Lena tells her when Alex stops by to ask how the research is going about the poison used on Kara, nor the new ones.

_It’s you._

Two simple words in Kara’s, by now familiar again, loopy handwriting. It appeared a few days ago, etched in bright green into her skin next to her heart.

Sam and Ruby hum when she shows them.

“Green, eh? That’s new,” Ruby mutters, rubbing her chin in contemplation while she continues squinting at it from the kitchen counter.

“I certainly haven’t heard about them ever being green,” Sam says, trying to tackle this problem like a math-related problem in her head. But how do you do that when the problem isn’t at all logical because it’s one of a kind?

“Maybe it’s because Aunt Kara is an alien?” Ruby shrugs, taking a bite from the carrot she was peeling.

Alex shakes her head. “No, the old one was just written in black.”

“Well, this is a rather special situation you two found yourself in,” Sam continues, stealing the carrot from Ruby before chopping it up and putting it into the pan with the rest of the vegetables. “Maybe the universe decided you deserve a special colour.”

Later that night, when Alex has gone home and Lena is staying over for dinner and helping Ruby with homework (and maybe also staying the night because Sam looked exceptionally pretty that evening with her hair down, in comfy sweatpants and an old college sweatshirt), they update the groupchat with the joyous news that both Alex and Kara have each other’s soulmark. Again.

There’s copious replies of “happy tears” and “THAT’S MY GIRLS” gifs, thumbs-up emojis, ecstatic keyboard smashes and one “totally called it”.

 

++

 

“Ladies, there’s some good news and some bad news,” J’onn tells them when they’re both at the DEO for a regular check-up. They look at him curiously, and he motions for them to follow him into an empty conference room.

“The good news,” he continues as he sits down across from them, “is that Ms Luthor finally managed to track down what was in that glass cylinder that poisoned you, Kara. It’s an ancient gas called Spirit of the Elders, which affects the non-indigenous soulmate chemistry. It is rumored to feel like having your heart ripped in two, usually ending in a quick and early death of the victim. In your case it was a lucky coincidence that Alex died just a short time prior to you inhaling the gas. You forgot her, but you didn’t die.”

“Lucky, he says,” Alex grumbles, crossing her arms petulantly. Kara gives her an indulgent smile and rubs her arm placatingly.

“The bad news is,” and his features turn even more grim, “that there’s no known way to reverse it. Few have lived to tell where the Dominators originate from, and even less know about the gas and its effects. Ms Luthor and every scientist on her payroll, our resident team of scientists, as well as all of Kara’s Earth-1 friends, are working day and night to find a solution. Until then, I’m afraid I can’t offer anything more than the waiting game.”

 

++

 

There’s theories on the internet, once one has decided to stray from the beaten path. (There’s also theories on the beaten path, sure. Usually backed by science and cold hard facts.)

Theories that range from “my second cousin twice removed knew a work colleague’s best friend’s uncle in a similar position, only true love’s kiss was able to solve the problem” over “there is no cure and here is my detailed personal opinion why, because love is garbage” to “for reasons I can’t be bothered to explain, a big shock is the only way to solve this.”

There’s hundreds of theories, and both Alex and Kara must’ve read them all in what little spare time they have.

 

++

 

There’s always something people are forgetting.

Usually it’s the little things (“Where are the car keys?”), sometimes slightly bigger things (“Was that doctor’s appointment today? Crap.”), sometimes big things (“Who are you?”).

Sometimes the things people are collectively forgetting have catastrophic proportions.

Like the fact that maybe, just maybe, even Dominators have soulmates, because that’s how this universe works, and that maybe, just maybe, unlike humans, they don’t just wither away and die when their soulmate dies, but instead seek revenge. Especially when they find out that a certain planet as noisly as Earth has been asking around how to get an antidote for Spirit of the Elders.

That’s how Kara finds herself in a fist fight with an angry Dominator, again, barely a few months after the last fight. Only this time there’s no Barry helping her out, no Arrow, no Legends. Only Earth-38s last reserve. Which is also on its last legs.

The Dominator was able to track them down after a mere few months of searching and torturing people who might have information.

A few months of somewhat peaceful living, even if she wasn’t awake for the beginning of it, getting to know Alex, again, learning what makes her tick, learning how to be her best friend, learning how to be _them_ again, maybe. Alex gets her in a way that all of their friends could only hope to achieve together. And now Kara might not even be alive to see where it goes because the Dominator’s hand is slowly closing around her neck, pressing down on her windpipe in a truly uncomfortable way. But, she guesses, that’s the point.

Her heat vision isn’t working and she’s too busy clawing at the Dominator’s hand to notice a battered and bruised Alex stumbling through the rubble that is once again National City’s downtown area. There’s a comically large alien gun in her hands, and Kara has a feeling this won’t end well for any of the parties involved.

“Hey, asshole!” Alex shouts, aims the gun straight at the Dominator’s back and shoots.

The Dominator lets Kara fall in its surprise, but there wasn’t a lot of damage done to it. It’s still standing, it’s still _angry_ , and Kara, lying on the ground with a gashing head wound and with her oxygen deprived brain, knows what’s coming next. The alien turns around slowly, snarls at Alex, and charges.

Kara feels like everything happens in slow motion at that point.

Alex watches the Dominator charge at her, and then her eyes lock with Kara’s, giving her a self-deprecating smile. She mouths, “I love you,” before closing her eyes and bracing for the inevitable.

“No,” Kara whispers, fear and adrenaline surging through her. Alex is human. Alex is soft. This time, Alex _will_ die, if only because everyone who might offer her a quick escape to the DEO infirmary is lying unconscious on the battlefield. No one gets to cheat Death twice.

“No,” she says again, this time with more force. Her fists clench and she draws on whatever energy she has left to stumble upwards, sprinting after the Dominator.

“No!” Kara yells, feeling her vision blur when she sees the Dominator jump and reach backwards to deliver a deadly punch. She’s fast, she knows she’s faster than Kal-El, when she’s not been beaten within an inch of her life, but she knows she’s not going to be fast enough to stop the Dominator in its tracks. Hot tears run down her cheeks at the thought of losing Alex again, after just having found her.

She can feel her eyes burning, different from how her heat vision usually feels. It’s not the red she usually feels and sees around the edges, and not just tears at the thought of seeing Alex die, but a bright blue light that calmly washes over her.

The next thing she know is that she is floating next to the Dominator, holding its hand back from swinging towards Alex. She crushes the hand like it offers no resistance at all, making the other alien cry out in pain. There’s only the singular focus left of protecting Alex, something she failed to do the last time. The Dominator’s neck snaps like it’s made of glass, and the lifeless body sags to the ground between Kara and Alex.

Kara floats over the body and gently cradles Alex’s cheeks in her hands. She can feel Alex’s heartbeat thrumming wildly beneath her fingers, and it’s still irratic, still believing to die in a moment’s notice. She carefully wipes away the grime and blood from underneath her eyes, although nothing could ever make Alex anything but beautiful in Kara’s eyes.

Alex’s eyes flutter open at the tender touch, taking in Kara’s appearance with wide eyes.

“ _It’s you_ ,” Kara says softly, being blessed with a moment of perfect clarity. It doesn’t matter if she never regains her memories of what she had with Alex before The First Fight happened. Alex is her best friend, her confidante, the love of her life, her person, even if they had to start everything from the ground up. There’s no one she’d rather be awkward roommates with.

“ _Look at you, oh my god_ ,” Alex exhales, taking in the blue aura surrounding Kara, the shining blue eyes, so similar to her heat vision, but not. Kara looks aethereal, floating a few inches above the ground, her hair moving dramatically in the wind.

If someone were to ask her, Alex would tell them she’d blame their emotions running high, high on adrenaline after facing Death, _again_ , and escaping by the skin of their teeth. She probably won’t tell them that for the past few weeks, being with Kara has felt like coming home, even if she had no further frame of reference.

Alex reaches up to pull Kara closer, their lips slotting together in a kiss that feels long overdue. She feels herself being engulfed by the blue light that emits from Kara, secure in Kara’s arms and floating above the ground with her.

She’s kissing Kara for the first time, but it also feels like she’s been doing it for years. She instinctively knows how to tilt her head and flick her tongue to make Kara gasp, and in return, Kara instinctively knows how to have Alex melt into her embrace even more.

“It’s you,” Kara whispers over and over again once they’re back on the ground, Kara’s forehead resting against Alex’s and the blue light from before gone. “It’s been you since I’ve stepped out of that damn pod for the first time. I’m sorry it took me so long to realise it.”

Tears gather in Alex’s eyes and she leans forward to steal another kiss. “It’s been you ever since you saved me from the plane crash. I’m sorry I was such an ass about it.”

Kara just grins and hugs her tighter, clinging to Alex like a koala. “I remember our wedding day."

Alex smirks. “I remember our wedding _night_.”

Kara blushes and giggles, hiding her face in Alex’s neck and placing a soft kiss on a strong tendon.

“I can’t believe our friends thought they were being sneaky when they came up with different excuses why we couldn’t stay on their couches for more than a night when we had amnesia,” Alex continues, gently combing through Kara’s hair.

“Poor Winn, I think he actually set his couch on fire to make it more believable.”

 

++

 

Later that night, after they’ve helped their friends and allies to the DEO infirmary or their respective homes, and they went home to celebrate their re-found memories by making some fun new memories, they’re lying in bed, basking in the afterglow and in all the memories they have of each other.

Alex is curled up in Kara’s arms, slowly sliding her left index finger along the new soulmark on Kara’s chest. “I still wonder why it’s green.”

Kara hums, pulling Alex closer and dropping a kiss on the top of her head. “Colour of hope, maybe,” she sighs, content to have Alex back in her life in every way. She slides her palm along Alex’s contour, pausing when there’s a strange, tingling sensation coming from around her hip. She squints down and sees the old soulmark glow in a light blue light whenever she passes over it. When her hand is gone, it turns back to being greyed out.

“Tickles,” Alex mumbles, squirming away from Kara’s touch.

“Interesting,” Kara says, following Alex’s movements and trying it a few more times before Alex rolls her onto her back, pinning her hands over her head.

“Stop it, Kara Zor-El-Danvers,” she says, mock-glaring at her.

“Oh, Alex Danvers-Zor-El,” Kara purrs, rolling her body upwards to Alex’s, whose breath hitches. “I’m afraid you’ll have to make me.”

Alex will do so at least three more times that night.

**Author's Note:**

> I think fate should’ve given you someone better equipt (and with more time) to tackle this prompt in the time given, but here we are. I'm sorry that the fic probably hasn't reached its full potential. I was swamped with work and a serious case of overtime for the past 1.5 months. But I have a feeling I'll build on this fic in the future.
> 
> Is that the Avatar state Kara is in in the end? Maybe.


End file.
